票据无权代理追认制度微探

票据行为是一种法律行为，自然也可以以代理方式为之。民法上有关代理制度的规则一般也都可以适用于票据代理行为。但由于民法与商事法的立法旨趣各有侧重，为促进票据流通、保障交易安全，票据代理不能照搬民法上关于代理制度的规定。票据的无权代理是票据代理中一个非常典型的问题，与民法上的无权代理区别很大，其中存在的问题很多。对于票据的无权代理中是否应当赋予本人以追认权，多数大陆法系国家的立法例与英美法系国家之立法例有所不同。     

Network neutrality and the nature of competition between network operators

The neutral architecture of the Internet is being challenged by various parties, such as network operators providing the connections to end-users, who are interested in gaining control of the information exchanged over the Internet. What are the effects on competition and welfare of such practices? Currently, there exists very little economic theory on network neutrality. This paper provides a preliminary analysis of the type of economic modeling that can address network neutrality, as well as of the type of results that can be expected.     

Quality Competition and Social Welfare in Markets with Partial Coverage: New Results*

We use a vertical product differentiation model under partial market coverage to study the social welfare optimum and duopoly equilibrium when convex costs of quality provision are either fixed or variable in terms of production. We show the following new results. First, under fixed costs, the social planner charges a uniform price for the single variant that just covers costs of quality provision. Like the duopoly equilibrium, this socially optimal pricing entails a partially uncovered market, but a smaller share of the market is served compared with the duopoly equilibrium. Second, for the variable cost case, it is socially optimal to provide both high‐ and low‐quality variants, but market shares need not be equal. This differs from the result in fully covered markets. Third, in the duopoly equilibrium, the quality spread is too wide under variable costs relative to the social optimum. Under fixed costs, the duopoly produces two variants, but quality is too low relative to the social optimum, which has only one variant.     

差异化战略:《新周刊》新锐之道

现在的杂志界“同质化”现象泛滥,许多刊物从封面到内容都是低层次重复。整个中国杂志界由于受体制的限制和束缚,存在创新意识和原创精神的缺失,难觅成熟的商业操盘。《新周刊》作为新闻时事杂志的“异类”,充分运用差异化战略,步步为营,闯出了一片新天地。文章从专题、封面设计、受众定位、经营方法等方面阐述了《新周刊》的差异化战略。     

Minimum Quality Standards under Asymmetric Duopoly with Endogenous Quality Ordering: A Note

In this note, we revisit minimum quality standards (MQS) under a vertically differentiated duopoly. We generalize the model in Ronnen (1991) and Valletti (2000) by introducing asymmetry into the fixed cost of quality improvement and by explicitly taking into account the endogeneity of quality ordering. In the generalized model, we show that the results derived by Ronnen (1991) and Valletti (2000) are largely robust.     

Free Entry under Uncertainty

When focusing on firm’s risk-aversion in industry equilibrium, the number of firms may be either larger or smaller when comparing market equilibrium with and without price uncertainty. In this paper, we introduce risk-averse firms under cost uncertainty in a model of spatial differentiation and show that the impact of uncertainty will increase the number of firms in an industry. With increased uncertainty, the risk premium of the marginal buyer increases by more than the risk premium of the average buyer, so that the price increases by more than the risk premium. When turning to the free entry game, we find that the market generates too many firms.     

Effect of credible quality investment with Bertrand and Cournot competition

We show how credible revelation and ability to commit to quality choice effect equilibrium qualities and welfare when product market is either Bertrand or Cournot competition. We show that results depend on the type of competition but not generally on the cost of quality function. We show that with Bertrand competition, the equilibrium qualities are lower with credible commitment. Competition is moderated and producer surplus is higher and consumer surplus lower. With Cournot competition, higher quality will be better but lower quality will be worse with credible commitment. Consumer surplus is always greater with credible commitment and if cost does not increase too quickly with quality, producer surplus will also increase. Thus credible commitment is a collusive device with Bertrand competition but it can improve social welfare with Cournot competition. Received: February 8, 2000; revised version: February 14, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The idea of this paper originated in the weekly workshops of Mordecai Kurz at Stanford. I am forever in debted to Mordecai and fellow students – Luis Cabral, Peter DeMarzo, John Hillas, Michihiro Kandori, Steve Langois, Patrick McAllister, Steve Sharpe, Peter Streufert, Steve Turnbull and Gyu-Ho Wang – for their criticism and encouragement. I also benefited from comments from Yi-Heng Chen, Jin-Li Hu, Kala Krishna, Jinji Naoto, Thomas J. Prusa, and Shyh-Fang Ueng at various later stages of this work. Last but not least, I am grateful for the detailed comments of the referee.     

中国粮食生产区域分化特征和成因的实证研究

对中国在1990年和2002年粮食生产的区域分化状况进行统计分析的结果表明,工业化和城市化的发展,以及农产品市场形成条件下,稻米生产的区域分散特征、小麦生产的区域集中特征以及玉米播种面积的集中和生产产量的分散特征日益明显。计量检验显示,人均承包经营耕地面积和种植业收入比率是影响粮食生产区域分化的最主要的两个因素。     

控股股东、实际控制权与小股东权益保护

股权集中型公司是现代公司的主流组织形态之一,其代理成本主要产生于控股股东与小股东之间存在的利益冲突.通过发行多种类股票、交叉持股和金字塔式控股等方式,控股股东能够获取比与其股权份额相对应的名义控制权更大的实际控制权,因而更容易发生以侵害小股东权益作代价追求控制权私下收益的道德风险行为,致使代理成本高昂.声誉机制和法律手段能够迫使控股股东收敛侵占行为,且法律手段较声誉机制更为有效.在中国,声誉机制对控股股东基本不起作用,保护小股东权益的最为有效的措施是完善相关立法并加大执法力度.     

Racing in two dimensions

In this paper we study an industry in which there is an ongoing sequence of R&D races between two firms. Firms are engaged in product innovation. Products are horizontally and vertically differentiated. There are two key characteristics/dimensions to products, and the level at which these are embodied in products can be increased by R&D. At each time firms can spend R&D on improving their product in one or both dimensions. We allow the possibility of economies scope — so R&D undertaken in one dimension can spillover to the other. The question we are interested in is whether a firm that is ahead in a single dimension but behind in another will focus all its R&D effort in the area in which it is ahead (product specialisation), or whether it will try to do R&D in both dimensions in the hope that it might get ahead in both and end up with a superproduct that dominates in both characteristics. The outcome of this R&D competition determines a Markov transition probability matrix determining the evolution of the industry. We show that when the R&D technology is characterized by constant returns then the only steady-state outcome is one in which the economy stays forever in a position in which one firm produces a super-product and the other gives up doing R&D altogether. This outcome is unaffected by the degree of economies of scope. When the R&D technology is characterised by decreasing returns, then the industry will visit all states and so will exhibit both product specialisation and superproduct dominance at various times. Now the extent of economies of scope matters and we show that the greater the extent of economies of scope, the less likely is the industry to exhibit product dominance, and the more likely it is to exhibit product specialisation.